My Danish Sweetheart Volume I Part 13

It was necessary that we should have everything in readiness before we carried poor Captain Nielsen out of his cabin. I uns.h.i.+pped the gangway, and watching an opportunity as the swell lifted the raft against the side of the barque stooping to it, I sprang; but I could not have imagined the weight and volume of the swell until I had gained the frail platform. Indeed, one could feel that the wrath kindled by the tempest still lived in the deep bosom of the ocean. It was like a stern, revengeful breathing; but the wind was light, and the water but delicately brushed, and it was easy to foresee that if no more wind blew the swell would have greatly flattened down by sunset. Yet the manner in which the hull and the raft came together terrified me with a notion of our contrivance going to pieces. I called to Helga, as she threw to me or handed the several parcels and articles we had collected upon the deck, that there was not a moment of time to waste--that we must get her father on to the raft without delay; and then, when I had hastily stowed the last of the things, I sprang aboard again, and was going straight to the Captain's berth, when I suddenly stopped, and exclaimed: 'First, how is he to be removed?'

She eyed me piteously. Perhaps her seamans.h.i.+p did not reach to _that_ height; or maybe her fear that we should cause her father pain impaired her perception of what was to be done.

'Let me think, now,' said I. 'It is certain that he must be lowered to the deck as he lies in his cot. Does he swing by hooks? I did not observe.'

'Yes,' she answered, 'what you would call the clews come together to a point as in a hammock, and spread at the foot and head.'

'Then there must be iron eyes in the upper deck,' cried I, 'to receive the hooks. Now, see here! we shall have to get a sling at each end of the cot, attach a line to it, the ends of which we will pa.s.s through the eyes, and when this is done we will cut away the clews, and so lower him. Yes, that will do,' said I. 'I have it,' and, looking about me for such a thickness of rope as I needed, I overhauled some fathoms, pa.s.sed my knife through the length, and together we hastened to the Captain's berth.

'What is it now?' he asked, in a feeble voice, as we entered.

'Everything is ready, Captain Nielsen,' said I, 'there is no time to lose. The cargo is was.h.i.+ng about in the hold, and the s.h.i.+p has not another hour of life left in her.'

'What is it that you want?' said he, looking dully at the coil of rope I held in my hand.

'Father, we are here to carry you to the raft.'

'To the raft!' he exclaimed, with an air of bewilderment, and then he added, while I noticed a little colour of temper enter his cheeks. 'I have nothing to do with your raft. It was in your power to save the poor _Anine_. If she is to founder, I will go down with her.'

So saying, he folded his arms upon his bosom in a posture of resolution, viewing me with all the severity his sickness would suffer his eyes to express. Nevertheless, there was a sort of silliness in the whole manner of him which might have persuaded the most heedless observer that the poor fellow was rapidly growing less and less responsible for his behaviour. Had he been a powerful man, or, indeed, possessed the use of his extremities, I should have dreaded what is termed a 'scene.' As it was, nothing remained but to treat him as a child, to tackle him with all tenderness, but as swiftly as possible, and to get him over the side.

There was a dreadful expression of distress in Helga's face when she looked at him; but her glances at me were very full of a.s.surance that she was of my mind, and that she would approve and be with me in sympathy in whatever I resolved to do. Whipping out my knife, I cut lengths off the rope I held to make slings of. I carried one of these slings to the cot and pa.s.sed it over the end. The Captain extended his hand, and attempted to thrust me aside. The childlike weakness of that trembling push would, in a time of less wretchedness and peril than this, have unnerved me with pity.

'Bear with me! Be yourself, Captain! Show yourself the true Danish sailor that you are at heart--for Helga's sake!' I exclaimed.

He covered his eyes and sobbed.

I secured the slings to the cot, and, until we lowered him to the deck, he held his face hidden in his hands. I rove two lengths of line through the iron eyes at which the cot slung, in the manner I had described to Helga, and when the weight of the cot was on these lines, we belayed one end, holding by the other. I then pa.s.sed my knife through the clews, as it would be called, or thin lines which supported the cot, and, going to the rope I had belayed, bade Helga lower her end as I lowered mine, and the cot descended safely to the deck. The girl then came round to the head of the cot, and together we dragged it out of the house on to the deck.

Saving a little wrench when we hauled the cot over the coaming of the deck-house door, the poor man was put to no pain. It was merciful indeed that he should have lain ill in the deck-house, for had he occupied a cabin below I cannot imagine how we should have got him out on to the deck without killing him with the anguish which we should have been forced by our efforts to cause him.

When we had got him to the gangway I sprang on to the raft and caught hold of the block that dangled at the extremity of the yardarm tackle.

With this I returned to the barque, and, just as we had got the raft over, so did we sway the poor Captain on to her. I got on to the raft to receive him as Helga lowered the cot. He descended gently, and on my crying, 'Let go!' she swiftly released the line, and the tackle overhauled itself to the roll of the vessel.

I remember exclaiming 'Thank G.o.d!' when this job was ended, and I had unhooked the block, as though the worst was over; and indeed, in the mere business of abandoning the barque, the worst had ended with the bestowal of the sick and helpless Captain on the raft. But what was now to begin? My 'Thank G.o.d!' seemed to sound like a piece of irony in my heart when I looked from the deep, wet, gleaming side of the leaning hull, waving her wrecked spars in the reddening light of the sun--when I looked from her, I say, to seawards, where the flowing lines of the lifting and falling swell were running bald and foamless into the south-west sky.

Helga came to the gangway and called to know if all were well with her father.

'All is well,' I answered. 'Come now, Helga! There is nothing to detain us. We shall be wise to cast adrift from the barque. She is very much down by the head, and the next dip may be her last.'

'A few minutes cannot signify,' she cried. 'There are one or two things I should like to bring with me. I wish to possess them, if we are preserved.'

'Make haste, then!' I called. She disappeared, and I turned to the Captain. He looked up at me out of his cot with eyes in which all the feverish fire of the morning was quenched.

'Is Helga remaining in the barque?' he asked listlessly.

'G.o.d forbid!' cried I. 'She will be with us in a minute or two.'

'It is a cruel desertion,' said he. 'Poor _Anine_! You were to have been kept afloat!'

It was idle to reason with him. He was clothed as I had found him when I had first seen him--in a waistcoat and serge coat, and a shawl round his neck; but he was without a hat--a thing to be overlooked at such a time as this--and the lower part of him was protected only by the blankets he lay under. There was still time to supply his requirements.

I had noticed his wideawake and a long cloak hanging in his berth, and I immediately sprang on board, rushed aft, procured them and returned.

Helga was still below. I put the hat on the Captain's head and clasped the cloak over his shoulders, fretting over the girl's absence, for every minute was communicating a deadlier significance to the languid, sickly, dying motions of the fast-drowning hull.

I think about ten minutes had pa.s.sed since she left the barque's side to go to her cabin, when, bringing my eyes away from the sea, into whose eastern quarter I had been gazing with some wild hope or fancy in me of a sail down there--though it proved no more than a feather-tip of cloud--I saw Helga in the gangway. I say Helga, but for some moments I did not know her. I started and stared as if she had been a ghost.

Instead of the boyish figure to which my sight was already used, there stood in the aperture betwixt the bulwarks, which we call the gangway, a girl who looked at least half a head taller than the Helga who had been my a.s.sociate. I might have guessed at once that this appearance of stature in her was due to her gown, but, as I did not suspect that she had gone to change her dress, her suggestion of increased height completed the astonishment and perplexity with which I regarded her. She stood on the leaning and swaying side of the barque, as perfect a figure of a maiden as mortal eyes could wish to rest on. Her dress was of a dark-blue serge that clung to her: she also wore a cloth jacket, thinly edged about the neck and where it b.u.t.toned with fur, and upon her head was a turban-shaped hat of sealskin, the dark glossy shade of which brightened her short hair into a complexion of the palest gold. She held a parcel in her hand, and called to me to take it from her. I did so, and cried:

'You will not be able to jump from the gangway. Get into the fore-chains, and I will endeavour to haul the raft up to you.'

But even as I spoke she grasped her dress, and disclosed her little feet, and with a bound gained the raft as it rose with the swell, yielding on her knees as she struck the platform with the grace that nothing but the teaching of old ocean could have communicated to her limbs.

'Thank G.o.d you are here!' I cried, catching her by the hand. 'I was growing uneasy--in another minute I should have sought you.'

She faintly smiled, and then turned eagerly to her father.

'I have my mother's portrait,' said she, pointing to the parcel, 'and her Bible. I would not bring away more. If we are to perish, they will go with us.'

He looked at her with a lack-l.u.s.tre eye, and in a low voice addressed a few words to her in Danish. She answered in that tongue, glancing down at her dress, and then at me, and added, in English, 'It was time, father. The hard work is over. I may be a girl now;' and looking along the sea she sighed bitterly.

Her father brought his knitted hands together to his brow, and never could I have imagined the like of the look of mental anguish that was on his face as he did this. But what I am here narrating did not occupy above a minute or two. Indeed, a longer delay than this was not to have been suffered if we desired the raft to hold together. I let go the line that held the little structure to the barque, and getting the small studdingsail boom over--that is, the boom we had s.h.i.+pped to serve as a signal-mast--I thrust with it, and, Helga helping me, we got the raft clear of the side of the vessel. The leewardly swell on which we rode did the rest for us and not a little rejoiced was I to find our miserable fabric gradually increasing its distance from the _Anine_; for if the barque foundered with us close alongside, we stood to be swamped in the vortex, the raft scattered, and ourselves left to drown.

It now wanted about twenty minutes to sundown. A weak air still blew, but the few clouds that still lived in the heavens floated overhead apparently motionless; yet the swell continued large, to our sensations at least, upon that flat structure, and the slope of the platform rapidly grew so distressing and fatiguing to our limbs, that we were glad to sit and obtain what refreshment we could from a short rest.

Among the things we had brought with us was the bull's-eye lamp, together with a can of oil, a parcel of meshes, and some lucifer-matches. I said to Helga:

'We should step, or set up, our mast before it grows dark.'

'Why?' she inquired. 'The flag we hoist will not be seen in the dark'--knowing that the mast was there for no other purpose than to display a flag on.

'But we ought to light the lamp and masthead it,' said I, 'and keep it burning all night--if G.o.d suffers us to live through the night. Who can tell what may come along?--what vessel invisible to us may perceive the light?'

She answered quickly: 'Yes. Your judgment is clearer than mine. I will help you to set up the mast.'

Her father again addressed her in Danish. She answered him, and then said to me, 'My father asks why we are without a sail.'

'I thought of a sail,' I replied, speaking as I went about to erect the mast, 'but without wind it could not serve us, and with wind it would blow away like a cobweb. It would have occupied too much time to rig and securely provide for a sail. Besides, our hopes could never lie in the direction of such a thing. We must be picked up--there is no other chance for us.'

The Captain made no response, but sat, propped up on his pillows, motionless, his eyes fixed upon the barque.

The sun had sunk, but a strong scarlet yet glowed in the western sky by the time we had erected and stayed the spar. I then lighted the lamp and ran it aloft by means of a line and a little block which I had taken care to throw into the raft. This finished, we seated ourselves.

There was now nothing more to be done but watch and pray. This was the most solemn and dreadful moment that had as yet entered into the pa.s.sage of our fearful and astonis.h.i.+ng experience. In the hurry and agitation of leaving the barque there had been scarcely room for pause. All that we could think of was how quickly to get away, how speedily to equip and launch the raft, how to get Captain Nielsen over, and the like; but all this was ended: we could now think--and I felt as if my heart had been suddenly crushed in me as I sat on the slanting, falling, and rising platform viewing the barque, that lay painted in clear black lines against the fast-dimming glow in the west.

Helga sat close against her father's cot. So far as I was able to distinguish her face, there was profound grief in it, and a sort of dismay, but no fear. Her gaze was steady, and the expression of her mouth firm. Her father kept his eyes rooted upon his s.h.i.+p. I overheard her address him once or twice in Danish, but getting no reply, she sighed heavily and held her peace. I was too exhausted in body and spirits to desire to speak. I remember that I sat, or rather squatted, Lascar fas.h.i.+on, upon the hatch-cover, that somewhat raised the platform of the raft, with my hands clasped upon my s.h.i.+ns, and my chin on a level with my knees, and in this posture I continued for some time motionless, watching the _Anine_, and waiting for her to sink, and realizing our shocking situation to the degree of that heart-crus.h.i.+ng sensation in me which I have mentioned. I was exactly clad as I had been when I boarded the barque out of the lifeboat. Never once, indeed, from the hour of my being in the vessel, down to the present moment, had I removed my oilskins, saving my sou'-wester, which I would take from my head when I entered the cabin; and I recollect thinking that it was better for me to be heavily than thinly clad, because being a stout swimmer, a light dress would help me to a bitter long battle for life, whereas the clothes I had on must make the struggle brief, and speedily drag me down into peace, which was, indeed, all that I could bring my mind to dwell upon now, for when I sent my glance from the raft to the darkling ocean, I felt hopeless.

The rusty hectic died out. The night came along in a clear dusk with a faint sighing of wind over the raft every time the swell threw her up.

There was a silver curl of moon in the south-west, but she was without power to drop so much as a flake of her light into the dark shadow of water under her. Yet the starlight was in the gloom, and it was not so dark but that I could see Helga's face in a sort of glimmer, and the white outline of the cot and the configuration of the raft upon the water in dusky strokes.

The barque floated at about a cable's length distant from us, a dark ma.s.s, rolling in a strangling manner, as I might know by the sickly slide of the stars in the squares of her rigging and along the pallid lines of the canvas stowed upon her yards. There was more tenacity of life in her than I should have believed possible, and I said to Helga: